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When Life Falls Apart, Jesus Holds It Together

January 26, 2010 By Hariette Petersen

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Do you sometimes feel like the world is falling apart? In any given day almost anyone we talk to can share a shattering experience that rips through their life and pierces the peace they take for granted. Even in the most dire of circumstances, things can get worse. We know that. We sometimes fail to remember that in an hour of despair, things can get better, too.

13 “For He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son He loves, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins… 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” Colossians 1.

When my son was five years old, he was crossing the street so he could safely ride his little-wheel trike on the sidewalks on the other side. Though he looked both ways, a large parked truck blocked his vision of an on-coming schoolbus. He took off just as I screamed and lunged forward. It was too late. The bus grabbed the handle of his trike and pulled his head beneath its gigantic wheels. He was wearing a toy plastic football helmet and the wheels of the bus gripped that; the grip held, and his head broke free. He was sent flying into the air. Just moments before I had been working on Vacation Bible School lessons in my kitchen. I’d taken a break to walk out and visit with a neighbor who was waiting for her daughter to come home from school. Suddenly my world was falling apart.

Yet as my world crumbled before my eyes, and fear tried to rob me of peace, the Lord held me and my world together. He allowed clarity in my thinking amid the chaos of screams and people rushing about to help me. The concussion my son had was not life-threatening because of the little helmet he wore. Though every nerve was exposed in his hand and every bone broken, miraculously, his hand needed only to be stitched back together. His arm was broken and his elbow dislocated, but the wrenching he’d received did not destroy its function. Several miracles were seen through that seemingly destructive day. Through it all, the Lord showed me quite clearly that “in Him all things hold together.”

PRAYER: Lord, there are times we think our world is falling apart. In these times, remind us of Your watchcare. Remind us of the times You have held all things together for us. Remind us that You said for us to “fear not”, that You are with us “even unto the end of the age.”